Questions for Candidates on US Torture Policy and Practices

How do the federal candidates of all political parties in your home district and state respond to questions about US-sponsored torture? What are their positions on the various issues concerning torture? Extraordinary rendition? Adherence to the Geneva Conventions? You can find out, using the questions below.

Ways to use the questions

“Bird-dogging”: Federal candidates need to know that torture is an important issue to the voters in their district and state. If questions about torture are asked often at public meetings, candidates will develop policy positions on the issue, and those in the audience will have the benefit of exposure to the issues as well. Find out from each candidate’s campaign headquarters when the candidate will appear at public events. You and your friends who share a concern about torture can take turns attending these events and use the question-and-answer time to ask one or more questions. It is helpful to join forces with a number of people for this project so that the candidates come to understand that many people have these concerns.

Questionnaire: Send the whole questionnaire to the campaign headquarters of each candidate in your district. Be politely persistent in your efforts to urge each candidate’s campaign staff to return the completed questionnaire. Then, pull together a comparison of the answers, and release the comparison of the candidates’ position on torture to the press and the public.

Questions for Candidates

1. The US Congress approved Senator John McCain’s amendment last year to ban torture by all US government agencies. This move recognized that a ban on torture is not only a moral necessity but also essential to ensure the same protections for US soldiers. Recent legislative action, however, allows harsh interrogation techniques to be used by non-military interrogators. Will you support future legislation that bans all US-sponsored torture, with no exceptions, and directs all US agents to abide by the Geneva Conventions?

2. The federal War Crimes Act of 1996 defines a war crime as any “grave breach” of the Geneva Conventions’ Common Article 3. This standard ensures that those who commit such abuses, including against our own troops, do not go unpunished. Do you believe the United States should maintain an unwavering commitment to Common Article 3?

3. The president acknowledged the existence of a CIA program that indefinitely detains “enemy combatants” in secret sites outside the rule of law and without access to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Individuals detained in such locations are afforded no safeguards of due process and may be subject to unchecked abuses. Will you call upon the United States to cease all secret detentions and provide the ICRC access to all US prisoners, as required by our international treaty obligations?

4. Under the practice of “extraordinary rendition,” the United States transports individuals from one country to another without judicial oversight to face criminal charges in the receiving country. Many officials have confirmed that the US has no capacity to ensure humane treatment under these circumstances. Do you support a prohibition on transfers of individuals in US custody to other countries where they are likely to be tortured regardless of assurances otherwise?

5. Recent legislation will permit — for the first time in the history of the United States — individuals to be convicted based on evidence obtained through abuse or torture (admitted through hearsay evidence). Will you oppose this practice, even for trials involving terrorism suspects?

6. By making War Crimes Act changes that are retroactive to September 11, 2001, Congress has immunized all top government officials and CIA agents against prosecution for interrogation policies that resulted in the abuses at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and in secret government torture cells around the globe. Should top government officials, private contractors, and CIA officials be given blanket immunity for their past conduct?

7. More than two years after the Abu Ghraib photos were published — and nearly four years after the first abuse-related deaths in US custody as part of the “war on terror” — we are still not in a position to say that we know how this situation came about so that we can ensure that such abuses never happen again. Do you support the establishment of an independent commission to investigate US detention and interrogation policies and practices since September 11, 2001, and to hold those who authorized and carried out abuses accountable?

8. Under recent legislation, the president will be permitted to authorize acts that are prohibited by Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions and the Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogations, without the possibility of court review of this authority. This strips the courts of their historical and constitutional role as a check on the executive branch. Do you oppose this broad expansion of executive powers, allowing the president to choose not to follow international treaties, and to side-step the authority of our courts system?